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468 of 510 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
1999's future classic--"It's not about sex", January 31, 2000
1999 was one of the greatest years in recent memory for film. Yet Eyes Wide Shut is all but absent from the end-of-the-year awards ceremonies and most critics lists. The first thing to bear in mind are that this film was hyped way beyond necessity. As if the general public had any interest in the "Kubrick" listed below "Cruise" and "Kidman". To them this was just another Big Actor's next Big Movie. Passing it off like a "real Hollywood couple gets busy on the big screen" heightened expectations for something Kubrick wasn't trying to achieve. It suffered the same audience reaction as The Phantom Menace, and made only a fraction of the money. Critics seemed to be lining up to take potshots at this film. Why? Recent history shows us that all of Kubrick's films from 2001 onward have been attacked critically, and subsequently hailed as classic years later. The same is true of most of Orson Welles' work. Few critics took the time to see this movie more than once before spewing their venom. A filmmaker like Kubrick is not going for direct emotional contact with the audience. He is aiming far deeper, asking the viewer to reflect on not only the images, but the themes, and the emotional investments of the characters. The subtlety is not something common in today's films, and something critics apparently can't process quick enough to meet a press deadline. For all those complain that the film isn't sexy or erotic enough are missing the point completely. It's not about sex. It's about many other things, some of which linger in the background, some that aren't noticeable on the initial viewing. Kubrick raises questions about our institution of marriage, the nature of faith, commitment, temptation. That most in the audience weren't willing to meet Kubrick, Cruise, and Kidman halfway in this meditation isn't a comment on the quality on the filmmaking, it's a shortcoming of the sensory-deadened society. If Kubrick had been more in touch with today's film culture, would he have bothered to give us this complex of an experience? Let's thank him for his seclusion. A NOTE on the DVD not being letterboxed: Kubrick (again, like Welles) preferred the aspect ratio of television, and left extra space in his frame for their widescreen theatrical showings (some are letterboxed on Home Video as well). The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut are meant to be seen in the full-screen standard format, and therefore aren't available in letterbox, so don't feel you're being cheated out of any compositional content. Unfortunately you are being cheated by Warner Bros' refusal to remove the digital figures blocking the orgy scenes, inserted for theatrical release to secure the "R" rating. Only in America...
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93 of 99 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good News, Kubrick and Blu-Ray Fans, October 30, 2007
Kubrick's final effort is also his greatest masterpiece: a humane and expressionistic fable, endlessly complex and guardedly optimistic. A few notes about the Blu-Ray disc of "Eyes Wide Shut:" The Blu-Ray is the unrated version of the film, meaning it does not have those CGI figures added to the orgy scenes to obscure the simulated sex. (The CGI figures were added in order to secure a U.S. theatrical release rating of "R," without Kubrick's input; their only purpose was censorship. The version released on Blu-Ray, which was released theatrically in Europe but until now has not been available in the U.S., restores those shots to the way Kubrick filmed them.) The Blu-Ray disc contains all of the special features from the standard-definition DVD in the boxed DVD set, and they are interesting enough. The aspect-ratio of the Blu-Ray is 16x9, which is a vast improvement over the old 3x4 DVD, as 16x9 is much closer to the theatrical aspect-ratio for which the film's shots were composed. The High-Definition film transfer is beautiful, pristine, the images luminous and rich. For a film as beautifully photographed as this, in which the texture of the image conveys essential, visceral meaning, the difference between High-Definition and Standard Def might make the difference between fully receiving the film and not. If you've gone Hi Def and are thinking of buying this to replace your old standard-def 3x4 DVD, by all means do so. Short of a new 35mm print of the unrated version, this Blu-Ray disc -- displayed on a big 1080 set in a dark room, uninterrupted -- is how this challenging and ultimately thrilling film should be seen, and seen again.
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59 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sociology over Psychology, June 14, 2003
Stanley Kubrick's final and most complicated masterpiece opened to extreme disappointment among reviewers from all over. Critical disappointment with the film was almost unanimous. They claimed that Kubrick was "out of touch with today's jaded sensibilities". However, as has been the case with almost every Kubrick film ever released, the critics, at first, could only see what was not there. The film was, and continues to be, completely and utterly misinterpreted by both the critical and the public eye. The main themes in Eyes Wide Shut are not those of sex and marriage - now, certainly, the story that is told by the actors alone echoes of these subjects. However, what the actors are doing onscreen more often than not was meant by Kubrick to take second place to the imagery used in the film. And the themes portrayed by the imagery are most certainly not that which mainstream reviews have let on. So what exactly is Eyes Wide Shut about, then? Not sex. That much should be obvious from the re-appearance of the film's title after the short shot of Nicole Kidman's buttocks (telling us that we're not really seeing what we're seeing). Eyes Wide Shut is about the wealth and power of society - about the upper class. It's about how the elite men in this world manipulate their inferiors and treat them like mere possessions. It is about the mistreatment of women and the lower class, and the source of that mistreatment. From a single viewing of Eyes Wide Shut one may assume that Nicole Kidman's character has some "power" in her relationship with her husband, that she has some other meaning to him and his acquaintances than an object - a possession. One will see, however, after analyzing the film carefully, that she has no power. Kidman's character claims she is looking for a job in one scene, but we never see her looking. Instead, we see men - powerful men, who manipulate and control their inferiors to suit their needs - looking at her. Look carefully and one will see a series of parallels between Kidman's character and that of the call-girl we see at Ziegler's Christmas party - both have red hair, are approximately the same height, and seem to have a fondness for mind-altering drugs. The character played by Kidman is nothing more than another, married prostitute. One of the most disturbing images the film shows us is that of Nicole Kidman's character "training" her daughter to follow in her footsteps - the footsteps of the wife as a possession, the wife as an object... the wife as an "upper class call-girl". When we see her daughter working on math problems, she is trying to figure out which boy has more money than the other one. The one sentence we hear as she is reading a storybook to her mom is something to the effect of "and so I jumped into bed". The countless scenes of Kidman's character and her daughter grooming themselves side-by-side should make this point obvious enough. As well, in the film's final scene, we see the daughter flitting around the shopping store, picking up items that all relate her back to the women that Bill Harford has abused in his nighttime excursions - she picks up a Barbie doll (similar to Milich's daughter, who he is pimping off to any man who wants her), a teddy bear (just like the one we see when Bill Harford is with one of the prostitutes), and a purple baby carriage (like the one we see twice outside the prostitutes' door). And for one last disturbing flourish, Kubrick has her walk past a toy conspicuously called "The Magic Circle". History repeats itself and has come full circle, and Bill and Alice are too busy to notice. Recall the cafe that Bill Harford walks into when he discovers that Mandy - the girl he believes saved his life at the orgy - has died. Notice the music that's playing in the background. It's no ordinary classical music. It's Mozart's Requiem. The piece is a song mourning the death of someone. One may think it touching of Kubrick to include this little thing in the film, but it doesn't stop there - look closely at the paintings covering the walls in the room. They are antique paintings of women - women who, in their times, were treated like possessions just as each and every woman we see in this film is treated. It is a requiem for them - it's a requiem for all those who have been downtrodden on by the socially elite. The film's final scene has been interpreted by many as a happy ending. I do not see it that way. Bill and Alice are in a position to DO SOMETHING about all of the atrocities that have been committed by the upper class. Someone has been killed and they have this one opportunity to expose it. But no. They're both too caught up in their own problems to notice, or even understand, the bigger picture. In Kubrick's last word on this subject, or, for that matter, any subject, Alice and Bill, along with the rest of the world are "**cked". Given the chance to change the world in which they live for the better, they give it up - nay, they fail to even acknowledge that the opportunity exists. For all of their meaningless chatter about being wide awake now, they're still screwed over. Their eyes are still wide shut.
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